I don’t think gun control would have prevented the terrible horrible shooting that happened in Arizona. Why? Quite simply because criminals don’t buy guns (or magazines, or ammo, or anything else for that matter) from gun stores. Remember, we call them criminals for a reason (they broke the law). If they have broken one, what makes us think they’ll respect another. All gun control laws do is take guns away from law abiding citizens who want the ability to defend themselves and their family.
BTW, it looks like the guy passed a background check anyway. This guy, just like the VA Tech shooter, had been known to have serious mental problems. Perhaps, as this writer suggests, there should be a way to collate that data and include it in existing FBI check to purchase firearms. On the surface it looks good, but great care would have to be exercised to avoid people being reported and denied guns just because someone reported them at one time for something. That would just be gun control in another way.
The problem isn’t guns but the criminals.
[Update 2012-07-20 17:20:53] There has been a shooting in a Colorado theater at the showing of the new Batman movie. Of course, people are blaming guns. I’ve talked about the inconsistency of some headlines in this post.
Image from gregory wild smith via flickr